On NBC's Meet the Press last month, National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre, the face of the American gun lobby, delivered this message to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "He's going to find out that this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. He can't buy America." The day before, Bloomberg had announced that he would spend $12 million of his own money on an ad blitz pressing members of Congress to pass new legislation expanding background checks for gun purchases. LaPierre went on national television to tell the mayor that all those millions wouldn't make the difference in the fight in Congress over new gun laws.

Guess what? LaPierre was right.

The Manchin-Toomey background check legislation that died in the Senate on Wednesday had everything going for it. Bipartisan sponsorship by two centrist senators. The support of 90 percent of Americans. President Obama's full-throated backing. The momentum for reform created by tragedy and sympathetic advocates with gripping storiesex-Rep. Gabby Giffords, the Newtown families. All the pieces were there.

Yet it failed. The bill won a 54-vote majority but fell short of the Senate's 60-vote threshold to pass new laws, a high hurdle that progressives decry as undemocratic. But the main reason it failedand this is the key point for gun control advocatesis because the NRA has unrivaled political power, the kind of influence and muscle that Bloomberg, the Brady Campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Organizing for Action, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly, and the rest of the gun-control lobby can only dream of.....

Only thick-skulled boneheads believe that 90% of “americans” BS. It’s just propaganda from the Josef Goebbels fan club down at the state controlled “media”. If there was any truth to that 90% figure, the politicians would have known it and would have voted to violate the Second Amendment with this Nazi Gun Confiscation bill.

They always cheat on polls and senitment when they need to. Their ‘quotes’ are either just outright false, but repeated over and over until popularly legitimized (one liar quoting another liar as a valid source), or they just ask pointed questions like “do you want to see your child murdered with a gun if universal checks are not implemented?”

It would take some tall, tall fences for that to occur. Sure would like to try that experiment, with no condition of repatriation. Which side would keep people from escaping, and which side would grant asylum. Dang, this may have been try once, last century.

There's a Gallup poll out. “Only 4% of Americans Think Gun Control is an Important Problem.” Only 4%! After all the Newtown stuff on Air Force One. After all the so-called lobbying. After all of the caring. After all of the attention. After all of the focus. Only 4% of the American people think gun control is an important problem, but the people in Washington do not care. We've got Dingy Harry out talking about the anti-gun bill, letting the cat out of the bag. And that has always been the point, folks.

These polls saying that 90% of Americans believe in universal background checks, not true. They ignore the fact that nearly 100% of Americans do not think this is an issue. Only 4% of Americans think gun control’s an important problem. Can I talk to you about disconnect? If you turn on the media, if you listen to it, read it, watch it, all you'll think is going on is gun control and immigration. Alternate hours, alternate days, gun control here, immigration there. The next hour, immigration, then gun control.

11
posted on 04/21/2013 4:07:25 AM PDT
by Vaquero
(Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight,, he'll just kill you.)

Where does that 90% figure come from? What was the question that got 90% agreement. It wasn’t for this bill...I know, but it was for some general platitude. I’d like to know so I could quote it for all the idiots on Facebook.

16
posted on 04/21/2013 5:14:22 AM PDT
by ilgipper
(The lesson for the GOP is simple - don't let the opposition define you)

“It’s not influence that is backed by the American people. It is backed by a lot of money and a small, very vocal, and, in my opinion, an organization that has some extreme ideas about gun safety and about violence in this country.”

And other than Bloomberg, where did Bloomberg’s $12M come from?

18
posted on 04/21/2013 5:16:26 AM PDT
by BobL
(Look up "CSCOPE" if you want to see something really scary)

I joined the NRA the minute I saw that wonderful ad about Obama and someone else being hypocrits about school security guards. That was when I knew the NRA would fight to win, rather than cravenly cave.

Where does that 90% figure come from? What was the question that got 90% agreement.

Washington Post-ABC News Poll April 11-14, 2013: "Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows or online?" Support: 86 percent. Oppose: 13 percent.

Even if this figure is close to accurate, it doesn't really matter if the intensity isn't there. As many have pointed out, people who support gun rights care very strongly about this issue 24/7/365 while the majority of those who support more gun laws don't care much about the issue at all and usually only immediately following a major tragedy. Gun rights supporters are a powerful block and they'll easily vote against any politician who threatens these rights even if they agree with them on everything else.

Someone needs to explain to these idiots, that if 90% of the public was for this legislation, the red state democrats wouldn’t be in fear of losing their power if they voted for it. It’s that simple, it’s not that the NRA has $$$, as long as they believe that, they will continue to bring it up and continue to lose.

We should not oversell the poll that said that gun control is the most important issue for only 4% of the people. What the poll found is true, but the poll does NOT say that only 4% care about gun control, only that MANY more issues are more important.

I had wondered about that 90% stat. Seems it was 86% in a poll that over sampled Dems by 10% and under sampled gun owners by maybe 20%. Over half of the house holds polled had no firearm. Here in Texas I don’t know of a single house hold in my area that does not have firearms.

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